Chapter Text
“Fight? Are you crazy? There’s three of us, two dragons, and I can’t even stand up on my own. We’ll get blasted out of the sky.”
Dagur shrugged. “We’ve had worse odds than that before. If we keep standing around here we’re definitely dead. I’d rather die fighting than die on some random bounty hunter’s boat.”
“We just have to be smarter than them,” Heather said. “There’s strength in numbers, yes, but there’s greater power to be had in a good strategy.” Her hand slipped into Hiccup’s and squeezed gently.
“We will win this, I promise. No amount of bounty hunters or dragon fliers will ever get between me and my brothers.”
Hiccup’s heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was the exhaustion, the pain, or the sheer stress of their situation bearing down on them, but he felt tears begin to well in the corners of his eyes.
Siblings. He had a brother and a sister now, and damn Krogan if he thought he could take that away from him.
“I have a plan,” Hiccup said, ignoring how he could hear singetail roars growing ever louder. “I…I think. We know singetails struggle with vertical heights. The pressure is too much for them. So I’m thinking, if we’re quick enough, we can pick off the fliers one by one with vertical maneuvers.”
“Keyword being if,” Heather said. “That trick won’t work for long. Let’s not also forget that you’ve probably got a couple of cracked ribs, Hiccup. The elevation won’t be good for you either.”
“Well, then, we’ll just have to be really quick about it,” Hiccup replied. He tried to shift into a better position against Dagur’s shoulder; the pain that flared in his ribs nearly stole the breath right out of his chest. “I’ll be fine, I promise. The sooner we can get these guys out of commission, the sooner we can go home.”
Another singetail roar. Hiccup looked at the clouds: they were almost right on top of them. They had to make their move now, or they wouldn’t have a prayer of a chance.
“Alright, then,” Dagur said, though the tone of his voice and the look in Heather’s eyes made it obvious that neither of them were very happy with the plan. It was the only option they had: two dragons against (Hiccup performed a mental count) eight fliers were awful odds, and any plan was better than no plan. “You can ride with me on Sleuther. Promise me you’re not gonna pass out and plummet into the sea the minute we take off, okay, brother?”
“Promise,” Hiccup said, and despite himself, he felt a small smile creep onto his face. “Brother.”
A smile as bright as the sun cracked across Dagur’s face. “Let’s get this party started, then.”
“Meet you up there,” Heather said, already halfway to mounting Windshear. They were gone in a blur of silver, and he and Dagur were not so far behind. For a moment, Hiccup momentarily forgot his promise: his head spun like a top when Sleuther launched up into the night– he knotted his arms around Dagur’s midsection and held on for dear life, gritting his jaw so tight he was certain he could snap teeth if he had the mind to.
“You alright back there?” Dagur wheezed. The screech of singetail echoed past his words.
What? Oh–!” Hiccup loosened his arms. “Sorry, Dagur.”
“Maybe we should just have you bear-hug Krogan to death,” his brother (his brother!) teased. “Heather! You ready?”
“Born for it, brother,” she yelled back. A not-unfamiliar glint was in her eye, one corner of her mouth turned up into a wicked grin. Oh, of course they’d turn this into a competition. Hiccup rolled his eyes and groaned.
“Please remember that we’re trying not to die.”
“I’ve already died once,” Dagur grinned. He nudged Sleuther forward, straight for the singetails. “Where’s the fun in doing it again?”
Heather let out a whoop–no: a Berserker war cry. They surged forward into the multi-colored swarm. It was all Hiccup could do to hold on for dear life, pressing his forehead against Dagur’s shoulder. He wasn’t often a passive passenger: he couldn’t deny the anxiety bubbling up in his throat.
“Here we go,” Dagur murmured. Louder, he said, “You know how to fly Sleuther, right?”
“What?!”
Too late. Sleuther shot up, up, up into the clouds, a green singetail right behind them. Hiccup dared to look back: they were so close he could see the color of the flier’s eyes– blue, like the sea.
“Dagur, Dagur, why would I need to fly Sleuther?” Hiccup yelled against the whipping wind. Thor, he was feeling light-headed. Focus, Hiccup, focus.
“Oh, you’ll see,” Dagur cackled. “You gotta let go of me, okay brother?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Obviously! Gods, Hiccup, where have you been the last five years? Just let go when I tell you too.”
Hells, this was already going sideways. Hiccup looked back again. Their verticality had done nothing to dissuade the flier. Sleuther could not fly as fast as he could with two passengers weighing him down, and the flier was gaining despite the singetail’s obvious protest.
Oh Thor, we are toast.
“Now, brother!”
Against his better judgment– scratch that, against literally every single cell in his body, he released his death grip on Dagur’s midsection. He should have expected something crazy: what he didn’t expect was for Dagur to launch himself sideways off of Sleuther directly into the path of the flier. The flier had no time to course-correct: Dagur knocked him clean off his dragon, sending him plummeting into the sea below. The singetail let out a happy roar, and Dagur wisely jumped off onto Sleuther’s waiting back, though not before he carefully unwound the chain muzzling the poor creature.
“Just like that, Hiccup! Nothing to it.”
Windshear blew past them in a blur of silver. “We’re on two already!” Heather yelled with a wide smile on her face.
“That’s not fair, we’ve got an extra passenger!”
“Too bad, so sad!”
Dagur nudged Hiccup’s shoulder. “You’re in charge of driving Sleuther, now. If we’re quick we can pick off the stragglers like this.”
“This is insane,” Hiccup muttered. Regardless, he goaded Sleuther forward. “Three down, five to go.”
One of those five had to be Krogan. He swallowed back his fear, keeping one eye peeled for a scarlet and larger-than-average singetail. Another flier was coming at them: Hiccup knew the drill by now. He waited until the flier had latched onto them, then guided Sleuther upwards. As they ascended, he became acutely aware of a problem that his adrenaline-addled brain had, up until this moment, ignored.
“Um, Dagur?” he had to yell to be heard in the wind, which twinged at his battered ribs. “Why, uh–” oh gods, his head was beginning to spin. He swallowed back his nausea and pressed forward. “Why do you not ride with a saddle? You know that I could make you one, right?”
“Sleuther doesn’t like it,” Dagur replied. “He likes being free. Why do you ask?”
“Well, um, it’s just that– hells!” Hiccup’s hands slipped around Slether’s horns as he banked a hard left. The momentum pitched him to the side– straight off the triple stryke’s back.
Hiccup had fallen off dragons before. Hel, he had willingly thrown himself off of Toothless too many times to count, sometimes just for the thrill of the rush. There was no thrill in this, though: just screeching wind, and the weightless feeling of tumbling head over heel to his death.
His plummet screeched to a halt with a flash of silver. Windshear’s tail wrapped around his torso, pulling him from the jaws of certain death and onto her back as she raced by. Hiccup sucked in a deep breath, nearly retching both from the exertion and the exhilaration.
“Oh, come on now, Dagur can’t be so bad of a partner that you throw yourself off Sleuther,” Heather grinned, though her complexion was pale and her smile tight. She twisted in her saddle and grabbed onto Hiccup’s arm. “You’re okay?”
“Yeah,” Hiccup gasped. He leaned into her touch: almost a hug, but not quite. “I’m… I’m okay. We need to end this now. I don’t know how much–” his words tapered off with a sharp wheeze as a stab of pain shot through his chest. “Be quick,” he managed.
“Faster, girl.” Heather goaded her dragon to top speed. “We’ve got only a few more, and we’re clear out of the woods.”
Two more singetails were coming to meet them. Hiccup hoped that Heather’s plan to take them down would be a bit more level-headed than her brother’s: that hope was quickly quashed when she unsheathed her axe and told Windshear to race head-on towards the nearest flier. But then, what did he expect? They were Berserkers, after all: crazy was in the blood.
It was in his blood too. Honestly, the Berserker method was working like a dream, if him falling off of Sleuther didn’t count. He smiled to himself and at the rush of pure affection coursing through him.
My brother and sister, he thought. My brother and sister!
“Does this involve you throwing yourself off Windshear?” Hiccup asked. Heather tossed him a smile before rising to her feet, balancing expertly on the saddle.
“Of course it does!”
Windshear banked at the last moment, giving Heather the opportunity to leap off her dragon and onto the singetail. The rider never saw her– or her axe– coming. Hiccup scooted into the saddle, sighing in relief when his hands closed around handles.
“She sure is something, isn’t she, Windshear?” He patted the razorwhip’s neck, and received an affirmative croon. “Let’s go get her for another round.”
Heather hopped back onto her dragon when they circled around, landing in a crouch and steadying herself with a hand on Hiccup’s shoulder. “That one,” she said, pointing her axe towards a yellow flier.
“Is there ever gonna be a point where you and Dagur don’t pull crazy stunts in the name of… well…?” Hiccup gestured to the chaos. Heather laughed and squeezed his shoulder affectionately.
“It’s my mission in life to freak you out, now. You’d look so dignified with all the white hair we could give you.”
“Oh, you wound me, dear sister,” Hiccup replied with mock sorrow. He threw his hand against his forehead and pretended to swoon. “How will I survive with not one, but two crazy siblings?”
Heather punched him gently on the shoulder, and laughed, “Then I guess you’ll just have to be as crazy as we are. And speaking of…”
Dagur barreled towards them in a blur of yellow and black. “Hiccup, don’t do that,” he snapped, his eyes close to swallowing his face. “You fell off and I thought you died! I was planning my funeral speech and everything. It was a real tear-jerker too. Would have been better if I didn’t have to knock a few assholes off their dragons in the middle of it, though.”
“Guess you’ll have to hold onto it for just a bit longer, brother,” Hiccup grinned. “And anyways, I think I’ve got your guys’ strategy down by now. Let’s finish this and go home.”
Windshear and Sleuther let out twin roars of agreement. There were three fliers left, and no sign of Krogan. Hiccup kept that factoid burning in the back of his mind as he guided Windshear towards the next batch of singetails. Fliers, but no leaders. Krogan wasn’t stupid enough to skip out on capturing his greatest enemies. Wasn’t humble enough for it either: but if he was in the sky with them, he was doing an awfully good job at showing restraint.
“That one.” Heather tapped his left shoulder, signaling him to steer Windshear into the path of a green singetail. Hiccup leaned into the turn, pressing himself against the razorwhip and holding tight so Heather could steady herself against him. Not that she needed it: with uncommon grace she leapt off her dragon’s back and landed just behind the flier. The man jumped like Odin himself had landed at his back. The singetail took off, and Hiccup watched as Heather did battle with the flier, who was doing a better than average job of staying on his dragon’s back.
Crazy, Hiccup thought fondly. He squinted: the sun was beginning to peek its head above the sea, momentarily blinding him. Red spilled from the ocean, lighting the sky bit by bit and bringing sorely-missed warmth with it. If he had not been in battle, Hiccup would have relished it, drinking it in like a cup of water on a sweltering day.
My first sunrise with my brother and sister, he thought, at once bowled over with both the ridiculous sappiness of the sentiment and the love blooming in his heart. He had to live to see the next sunrise, and the next, and the next, and the next. He wouldn’t see one more dawn without the knowledge that both of his siblings were safe and happy.
A roar rattled Hiccup’s bones– a familiar roar.
“There you are.” Krogan’s voice rose with the morning. The sun framed his back, painting him in more shadows than light as he descended. “All alone, are you, Hiccup? Where are your brother and sister?”
Windshear snarled at Krogan; Hiccup wished he could as well. He wished he had the strength to throw himself off Windshear and knock Krogan straight into the sea. He couldn’t do that: he could barely keep himself upright, thanks to his protesting ribs.
“I’ll admit, this isn’t exactly what I wanted, but it’ll do.” Krogan’s smile was wicked. “I suppose killing you on the back of a dragon would be fitting.”
“Go!”
Windshear needed no motivation. Hiccup hung on for dear life, not so much driving the dragon as he was trusting that Windshear could get them out of this. Krogan was not far behind: more than once, Hiccup’s stomach dropped to his toes as Windshear dove to avoid a column of fire. The usual trick would not work. Every time Windshear gained altitude, a fireball would scorch over Hiccup’s head.
“We got this, girl,” he said, acutely aware that Krogan was chasing them further and further from the battle. “We just have to outsmart him. We can do that, right?”
In lieu of a reply, Windshear banked right, making a beeline back to the multicolored throng above the bounty hunter’s ship.
Come on, Hiccup prayed. Flames shot past his cheek; he leaned away, nearly falling off the saddle. The speed, the wind, the lack of oxygen, it was all piling up on him, one stone in the other until he would be pressed flat. He sucked in a breath, then gagged as a sharp stab of pain twisted in his chest.
“Come on,” he whispered to himself. “Just… just a little longer…”
Red filled his vision. Windshear reared back with a screech. His hands left the handles for one terrifying moment; he scrambled back for them, breathing hard.
“So this is the great dragon tamer,” Krogan mocked. His smile was wide and triumphant. “Your black eye does wonders for the legend, boy.”
Hiccup tried to think of a reply, and found he had nothing to say. He had no thoughts, save for the desperate need to pull air into his lungs. Every breath felt like he was being ripped open little by little.
“You… you won’t win,” Hiccup panted. Once more, black haze clambered for attention at the corners of his vision. Hold on! he wanted to scream to himself. Just a little longer: hold on! “Kill me, don’t kill me: it doesn’t matter. Someone will always be here to fight for what’s right. Someone will always be here to beat you.”
“Really?” Krogan made a show of looking around. “I see no one coming to your aid. You are alone, Hiccup Haddock. I was told of your predicament: you were abandoned by your family. It seems to me that your fate is always to be such.”
“Bold words for someone in your situation.” And it was true: behind Krogan, a ways off, but gaining ever more ground, were two dragons: one was familiar, but Hiccup did not doubt the passenger of the other. He relaxed his hold on Windshear’s saddle. Help was on the way– he did not need to fight for a moment longer. “You should know this by now, Krogan: as long as my family is with me, I’ll never be alone.”
He let the darkness take him. Several things happened in short succession as he fell off Windshear’s back: he heard Krogan’s shout, the roar of a triple-stryke, and Windshear’s crackling, high-powered flames. Right before he hit the water and he knew no more, he heard something else, something sweeter than spring.
He heard a rumblehorn’s bellow.
“…Hiccup?”
“…cracked ribs, and just look at that eye…”
“…leg is gone…”
“Give him some space, Snotlout…”
“Hiccup!”
His eyes snapped open. Blue sky was above him, along with a blurry, vaguely red shape that he recognized immediately as his father. Hiccup opened his mouth to speak– and immediately turned on his side and retched, coughing up a truly impressive amount of seawater from his lungs. He choked around it, hacking like he was dying of the Scourge of Odin, sucking in and coughing out air in as big of gasps as he could take them.
I’m alive, he thought around heaves. Oh, Thor, I’m alive, and my dad is right by my side!
“Easy, son.” A large, yet effortlessly soft hand pressed against his back. “Don’t go laboring yourself. You gave us all such a fright. Just what was in your head, pitching off Windshear like that?”
“Dad,” Hiccup wheezed, blinking the haze from his vision. He stumbled forward, pitching into the warm and waiting arms of Stoick the Vast. He clutched at his tunic, pressing himself into his father’s chest, and found a sob rising in his throat: whether it was one of grief or joy, he could not say. “Dad, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I was so stupid, and I love you so much. I was so, so stupid back on Berk, and I love you, I love you, Dad–”
“Son.” Stoick stilled his racing heart with one rumbling word. His arms engulfed Hiccup completely: a shield against the cold, against the wet, against the wild monster that adrenaline had barred up in his chest. “My dear boy. I’m not angry with you. I never should have kept a secret like this from you. It wasn’t right of me.” He pulled Hiccup away from his chest: his eyes glimmered with tears. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Hiccup shook his head. “There’s nothing to apologize for, Dad. I should be the one begging you for forgiveness. Gods–” he coughed around the last of the seawater and the emotion bubbling up in his throat. “Gods, I really put you through the wringer, don’t I?”
“Aye,” Stoick chuckled. “I wouldn’t trade it for all the gold in the world, son.”
A polite– well, as polite as Snotlout could manage– cough brought Hiccup’s attention to his audience. Fishlegs had a smile on his face and a look in his eye that said he was close to bursting into happy tears. Astrid’s grin was wider, fonder, and the twins had their arms slung around each others’ shoulders. Snotlout was the only one who didn't look like he was over the moon with joy; Hiccup knew his cousin well, though, and he knew that when Snotlout’s face was scrunched like that, he was trying his best to keep his emotions in check.
“Well, do we get a thank you or what?” Snotlout crossed his arms and huffed like it was the greatest inconvenience of his life to rescue Hiccup from the jaws of death once more. “Thank you, oh thank you Snotlout for saving me from Krogan’s army of singetails! I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he mocked in a truly awful impression of Hiccup’s voice.
“Snotlout, you barely did anything,” Astrid groaned. “Dagur and Heather are the ones that pulled him out of the water. All you did was scream when a singetail almost fried you.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!” Tuffnut chimed in. “You totally screamed like a girl. I haven’t even heard Ruffnut scream like that, and she never shuts up.”
“Hey, I’ll shut you up if you don’t shut up.”
Hiccup rolled his eyes. Some things would never change: he was glad for it. He put his friends’ bickering to the back of his mind and laid his eyes on Dagur and Heather, who were sprawled out on the ground with him. Both of them were soaking wet- Heather’s braid was mostly unraveled, and Dagur’s normally wild hair was plastered to his forehead. Dagur’s arm rested loosely around his sister’s waist: he held out his other, scarred palm up, and waited.
Hiccup didn’t want to wait. As soon as their fingers brushed, Dagur pulled Hiccup forward straight into the scant space between him and Heather, wrapping his arm tight around him. Heather’s hand met Dagur’s at the small of Hiccup’s back. Together, they pressed Hiccup in: on every side he was warm, and he was safe.
“We thought…” Heather started. She was strong, maybe one of the strongest people Hiccup would ever know. Regardless, her voice teetered on breaking. Hiccup buried his head in the crook of her shoulder and leaned into her: Dagur’s arms tightened around the both of them.
“I’m not,” he said firmly. “We’re all here and safe, and we have all the time in the world. No one gets to take that away from me.”
“Good, because I did not want to give that funeral speech,” Dagur laughed. “Can you imagine that? Me, at a funeral, crying over you? Ugh.” He let both of them go, and Hiccup could have sworn that he saw tears glimmering in his brother’s eyes. Dagur looked up at Stoick, then nudged Hiccup towards him. It was difficult with one foot and enough bruises for Hiccup to feel like he would never be free from aching ever again, but Stoick was strong and patient, bringing him to his foot with steady hands on his back and shoulder.
“Toothless?” Hiccup asked. The last of the haze the adrenaline had left him with was fading quickly. He was tired and aware, too aware, all at once.
“Back on Berk,” Astrid replied, hushing his swirling anxieties with just a glance of her blue eyes. “He’s okay, I promise you.”
“Good.” Hiccup sighed, and couldn’t help a laugh. He was alive, and his family surrounded him on every side.
Stoick looked down at him. He smiled, though there was hidden sadness carried in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “We should get back to Berk: Gothi will have her work cut out for her stitching you back together. And after that…I won’t keep you here, son,” he said, looking like he was the one with aching ribs instead of Hiccup. “If you don’t want to call Berk your home any longer, I’ll have no qualms with it: you belong with your family.”
Hiccup’s jaw nearly dropped open; but then, that did make sense, didn’t it? Not ten hours ago he had yelled at his dad like he had been the one who had given him up so carelessly instead of the man who had taken him with no hesitation. Is that what Stoick truly believed, that he would abandon his dad for a newfound blood relation? The consequences of Hiccup’s words were poison, and a slow-acting one at that.
“Dad, I would never…” he shook his head. “I’m so sorry. Dad, I never should have said any of that. And don’t–” he raised his hands when he saw Stoick open his mouth to argue– “please don’t say that you deserve it because you let a secret from me. I know why you did that. Oswald put you in a shitty situation, and you didn’t back down from it. You made me into the person I am today, Dad. You’re the reason I’m brave enough to do all of this.” He waved his hand to his friends, to their dragons, to his siblings. “I don’t want to choose between my family. I won’t choose. So please, don’t make me.”
He turned to look at Heather and Dagur. “When Krogan had me cornered, he told me that my fate was to always be abandoned. I told him that I’d never be alone so long as I had you guys,” he shifted his gaze to his friends, “all of you guys with me. I know I freaked out earlier and said things that I shouldn’t have. But I never, ever want any of you to think that you’re anything less than my family. You all have been with me through so much: I wouldn’t trade any of you for anything in this life and beyond.”
He found himself surrounded all at once in an army of embraces. Too many arms tangled around him in awkward and surely uncomfortable positions; Hiccup had spoken the truth when he said he wouldn’t trade it for anything. So what if Snotlout’s elbow was pressed into his side or if he had a face full of Ruffnut’s hair? So what if he felt like he had been crumpled into a ball and hurled down the tallest mountain? So what if he was probably going to pass out again when he no longer had a web of sixteen arms to keep him upright? This was his family, now and forever, through thick and thin, up and down, good times and bad: he wanted nothing more than that.